There hasn't been a requirement to invest with a financial advisor or to pay a load to buy American Funds for about a decade now. Most big brokers like Schwab waive their front end loads for A shares or "F-1" shares, and there are other share classes that have no load. Also, their fees for active management are reasonable, not as cheap as index funds, but what is? Admittedly, the alphabet soup of share classes is confusing.
Here's an example: https://schwab.com/research/mutual-funds/quotes/summary/gfafx

FA(financial advisers) catch 22. When your knowledge is below average, you can't distinguish between a good FA to below average/average one.
When your knowledge is above average, you don't need a FA.
I never invested with AF funds. Suppose I start with 1 million using an American financial adviser.
1) The FA invested in 3 AF funds. Do I pay 5% = $50K?
2) After 3 years, international stocks look great and I want to invest 0.5 million in it. I sell 0.5 million from the funds I own and buy the new fund. Do I pay a new 5% for the new fund?
3) Can you invest in other fund families? Do you pay any commission to buy Vanguard/Fidelity funds?

Not to start dumping on AFs but I do find their nearly 2-dozen OEF share classes hysterical. They've spliced their offerings so finely to ensure that various target clients 'get' the 'right' sort of 'discount' even if it's just a single bp difference somewhere. I find it amusing, tbh.
My 403(b) is entirely in the R-6 WaMu fund and I've been very pleased, plus a bunch of R-6s in a growth-oriented SMA. (I also hold several other AF A-shares in taxable and while I don't like 12(b)-1s, when they were purchased I didn't really think about that ... but they're more than doing fine, so I leave them alone.)

In the last 20+ years, I read/heard many times about other indexes, they come and go but VOO or VTI are the golden standard. The way these two are calculated is another plus.
Goldman: Stock valuations are justified, even in the face of rising rates (link). Very Typical to get these predictions after a rally. Just as we got similar views at the end of 2022, when VALUE was better than growth, and many "experts" predicted that VALUE supposes to be better...just to find out in 2023 that growth hugely led.

There are only a small number of American Funds/Capital Group. So, several are humongous and are team-managed. But those teams are internal - small groups of its analysts are given slices of big funds to manage. Typically, analysts only recommend/suggest stocks to lead manager(s) who make the final selections. But here, there is a combo approach. These teams at American Funds are different from those at Fido (many who led big Fido funds, but when that didn't work out, they were put on FBALX) or Vanguard (who farms out to multiple external and internal managers).
At one time, Bogle worried that some other firm like American Funds could go noload before he had the chance to implement his big new idea after being fired from Wellington Management (a load shop until then) - index and active funds that were and low-cost and noload. It seems that American Funds instead went in the direction of zillion classes - its Retirement R6 classes have the lowest ERs, and it now also sells F-1 classes on 3rd party brokers as noload/NTF (Fido, Schwab). It has also gotten into the ETFs that are farthest from load funds. Do its fund brokers and load fund holders like this? NO, but American Funds sees that as a declining pool of fools who unknowing pay a lot for the same stuff that is available for free in various channels.
I had American Funds R6 in my 403b until the plan changed to mostly index funds and TDFs - another disturbing trend.

American Funds seem to be the darlings of 401, 403, 457, etc. retirement funds. I owned them for many years, as part of company retirement programs, and was on Company Investment Committees that helped select them. They have huge AUMs, guided by large investment teams, but seem to stay pretty competitive. I have not owned any of their funds since I retired, but I know they have a large and loyal fan base that believe in them.

Completion index is an interesting idea but the problem is that they have lot of garbage - 35-40% unprofitable companies.
There are several:
For SP500, completion indexes are VEXAX/ VXF, FSMAX, USMIX. They use different definitions of total stock markets.
BTW, R1000/IWB has completion index R2000/IWM, with total market being R3000.

"You can’t avoid the S&P completely if you’re in domestic equity funds."
Seek and ye shall find: VEXAX / VXF invests in the S&P 500 Completion Index. Whether completely avoiding stocks in the S&P 500 is a good idea or not is a different question.

S&P Completion Index comprises all members of the S&P TMI Index except for the current constituents of the S&P 500®.

https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/equity/sp-completion-index-ci
https://www.morningstar.ca/ca/news/191057/this-etf-and-the-sp-500-make-a-good-pair.aspx

+1 for Capital Group, which holds a very large chunk of my money.

Think you meant CGGO, Capital Global Growth Equity; a sold global growth fund. The domestic version is CGUS. I bought CGUS and CGDV when they became available a year ago. Also looking at CGMS, a multi-sector bond fund.
Addition: excerpt from Lewis Branham’s article,

American Funds, which has had a multi-manager structure for its funds since 1958. Moreover, its 211 analysts actually manage a slice of each fund directly. Typically, equity funds have more than 10 co-managers.

For retirement account, the ER of the R6 shares (without the 12-b-1 fee) are reasonable. Now these actively managed ETFs are also competitive on their fees to other firms as WisdomTree.

"Over time they provided steady returns while managing the downside better than most large cap funds"
@Sven- Exactly.
Add- BTW, Just for the heck of it I bought 100 of the AF ETF CGGO a couple of months ago. So far, so good... ahead $115. I sent $100 of that to MFO a little while ago, so I'm still ahead $15. :)

CBUDX and RPHIX are different animals investing in the ultra short duration. CBUDX is purposefully meant to compete in the Morningstar ultra short duration category. A requirement of the category is that 65% or more of the portfolio be invested in investment grade debt. At June 30th, CBUDX was 74% invested in cash and investment grade bonds. Where as, RPHIX has a mandate to be substantially invested in high yield/below investment grade debt (generally, 80% or more). Further, RPHIX generally has a significantly larger holdings that are expected to roll-off into cash over 90 days. Typically, RPHIX also has a greater focus in debt that has been called/redeemed or subject to corporate action in comparison to CBUDX. Lastly, CBUDX in most circumstances will have a longer duration albiet still targeting 1 or lower.

@Old_Joe, we have had the fortune to invest in American funds in our 401(K). We were first a bit skeptical in the beginning With their team management approach. Over time they provided steady returns while managing the downside better than most large cap funds we had. . We are now investing with them again through their ETF offerings.

Hi folks. I encourage you reaching out directly of Mr. Snowball can arrange an MFO call. Regardless, let me take this moment to quickly respond.
Bobby: Not sure when RiverPark Short Term High Yield (RPHIX, RPHYX) commentary will some out as it is in the RiverPark hands. That said, the basic commentary will remain. As for your yield question - not 9%! I don't believe yield-to-worst or yield-to-maturity are figures readily provided as they can be very misleading since a significant portion of the the Fund rolls into cash every 30 days so a price can make a big yield impact with so little time remaining on the life of the holdings that a position(s) can impact the yield calculation. Below are some figures for June 30th (unaudited):
38% portfolio rolling off in 30 days or less
62% portfolio rolling off greater than 30 days
57% portfolio rolling off within 90 days
7.32% yield-to-worst on holdings greater than 30 days
Weighted average yield on purchases during the month was 5.88% with 2.2 month maturity.
Feel free to reach out to me directly if you need a further xplanation.
BaluBalu: Patience is a virtue. We don't like chasing the market. CMBS started to run (a little bit) post our 1Q letter. We will add as opportunity arises but price matters. Also, the opportunity should be around for some time. We expect the portfolios will continue to add,
Junkster:
Ed Shagrue is a seasoned veteran and thoughtful in the CMBS space. Although I do not own his Fund, I respect him. You should reach out to him.
I want to reiterate a comment in the 2Q commentary:
With respect to the portfolio, we remain nimble. At the end of 2Q23, we had elevated levels of “dry powder”. If high yield spreads tighten and the market rallies, we may increase our level of dry powder to take advantage of what we believe will be a correction thereafter. We had a healthy position in leveraged loans and are looking to add. At the same time, we are selectively nibbling in the CMBS market. Based on our expectation of increasing volatility, the portfolios are likely to continue experiencing above normal turnover as we adapt to reflect the changing environment.

There are only far and a few star managers, these managers do well in most markets for 1-2 decades and are flexible enough to change. The first that comes to mind is Giroux managing PRWCX.
A reasonable way is to invest in top-performing categories/funds, just as stock traders find top-performing categories and then look for stocks in that category.
From my experience after watching and researching funds for decades, most times, managers that outperformed, it's because their style fit markets in that period...or...they found a niche that worked well.
These types of markets can last for years:
2000-2010: the SP500 lost money; value, SC and international did much better(FAIRX,SGIIX)
2010-2021: US LC growth did better than most (QQQ)
PIMIX took advantage of the broken MBS of 2008 and had several years of better performance than stocks + better performance than many bond funds for more years + better SD = better Sharpe ratio.
Basically, invest in the market you have, not the market you wished you have.
BTW, the above does not mean fast trading and/or trading 100% of your portfolio.

Commercial Real Estate bond fund OEF - RCRIX/FX. YTD 6.10%. Not exactly the Armageddon the pundits have been predicting for CRE. Albeit the fund holds 0% in office buildings.
Edit: https://www.riverparkfunds.com/assets/pdfs/rpfrcf/commentary/RiverPark_Floating_Rate_CMBS_Fund_2Q23_Investor_Letter.pdf
Recent commentary on this fund. I spoke with the manager early in the year. He feels there are tremendous opportunities in CRE. He seemed a bit discouraged that his AUM were so much smaller than pre Covid as he wished to take advantage of such opportunities. I should add that River Park is by far the most stringent when it comes to short term trading of their funds. As I mentioned previously, they will send you a ban notice even before your sell order is processed. Meaning, if you have an early morning order in there to sell, they will ban you before close of day.

From the article:
"As discussed in our 1Q23 letter, capital flows favor assets with the highest risk-adjusted returns. Investors that have been large buyers of investment grade CLO debt are now able to earn significantly better yields in newly issued commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS)15 debt of comparable quality. In the AAA tranche, CMBS debt offers slightly less spread for much higher credit quality based on loan-to-value (LTV). For tranches below the AAA tranche, CMBS yields are, on average, significantly higher with better LTV"
"At the same time, we are selectively nibbling in the CMBS market. Based on our expectation of increasing volatility, the portfolios are likely to continue experiencing above normal turnover as we adapt to reflect the changing environment"
Music to my years.

@hank, the higher sum is from January to June, as I said in my post. The more time that goes by, the more the disparity grows. Start the comparison from 2021 and the disparity is now 164 bucks.
Where you start and stop your year also matters. For example, at M* you can chart the two against each other for the past year,and the difference is 57 bucks. Take a look at the chart in the new link I posted. At the end of December 2021, the discrepancy from January is 63 bucks.
The difference of .25 is not just a drag on the upside. It also sinks the fund deeper on the downside. As you can see in the link, at the end of January 2021, GLFOX is 13 bucks behind. And it will never catch up. It will fall inexorably behind.
I don't need to take IRA distributions for six years. If I back test the two funds for six years the CAGR for GLIFX is 8.63 vs, 8.35 for GLFOX. And the difference in dollars is 562 if 20K were the amount invested.

The SP500 is the most recognized index that represents stocks and over decades it has done better than most other stocks, including thousands of managed funds and professional managers that worked very hard to beat it.
Diversifying did not help much either, and I'm talking meaningfully about extra performance. There is a good reason why Bogle build the Vanguard Empire, it was based mainly on VOO or VTI for stocks. Buffet tells the same story.
The SP500 lost money in 10 years during 2000-2010, mainly because of the excessive performance of 1995-2000 when the SP500 made 250% in 5 years which is 28+% average annually (link).
Can the SP500 go sideways for years? Of course, it can. Are you going to switch to the right categories?